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We opened a Fidelity Go account with $20,000 of our own money in mid-2025 and watched it grow past Fidelity Go’s $25,000 fee inflection point in late 2025. That gave us a real customer’s view of both sides of the threshold – the $0-fee zone under $25K and the 0.35% paid tier above it. Most reviews pick a static dollar amount where Fidelity Go stops being free and starts charging 0.35% a year.
This wasn’t an accident. Fidelity Go is the only robo-advisor we know of that flips from “$0 forever” to “billable” at a hard threshold, and we wanted to test the platform at the worst possible price point – the moment the fee turns on. If Fidelity Go can hold its own at $25K (where it costs more than Wealthfront and Betterment at the same balance), it can hold its own anywhere. Spoiler: it almost does, but not quite.
Key Takeaways:
- We tested Fidelity Go with $20,000 of our own money in mid-2025 and watched the balance grow past Fidelity Go’s $25,000 fee threshold in late 2025 – so we saw the fee inflection happen organically rather than picking the number.
- Under $25K, Fidelity Go is the cheapest mainstream robo on the market. Above $25K, it gets more expensive than Betterment or Wealthfront at the same balance ($87.50/year vs $62.50/year).
- The platform uses Fidelity Flex mutual funds with 0% expense ratios, adds tax-loss harvesting at the $25K threshold (taxable accounts only), and opens up human coaching at the same balance.
Fidelity Go at a Glance
| Our Test Amount | $20,000 opened mid-2025, grew past $25,000 in late 2025 |
| Annual Fee | $0 under $25K / 0.35% at $25K and up |
| Account Minimum | $10 to invest, $0 to open |
| Coaching Access | $25,000+ balance required |
| Expense Ratios | 0% (Fidelity Flex funds) |
| Tax-Loss Harvesting | Included at $25K+ in taxable accounts |
| Account Types | Individual, Joint, Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA, HSA |
| Parent Company | Fidelity Investments ($14T+ AUM) |
| Custody | Fidelity Brokerage Services, SIPC-insured |
| Mobile App | iOS and Android (the regular Fidelity app) |
Our Test: $20,000 In, $25,000 Crossed
Most robo-advisor reviews on the internet are written by people who have either never opened the account or opened it with $100 to grab screenshots. We didn’t do that. We opened a fresh Fidelity Go account with $20,000 of our own taxable money in mid-2025 and ran it as a real allocation, not a demo.
The exact amount matters more than it looks. Fidelity Go has the strangest fee structure in the robo world: free under $25K, then 0.35% a year the moment you cross. Most people writing about this platform pick a side – they either test it as the “free for beginners” product or as the “0.35% hybrid advisor.” We tested it at the exact pivot point, because that’s where the trade-off lives.
Our allocation was the moderate aggressive (roughly 70/30 equities/bonds) portfolio the questionnaire recommended after we answered the questions about a 15-year horizon and a stomach for volatility. Fidelity placed us into a mix of Fidelity Flex funds covering domestic stocks, foreign stocks, bonds, and short-term reserves – the full menu.
What we wanted to find out:
- Does the fee turn on the day you hit $25K, or is there a grace window? (Answer: prorated daily from the day our balance crossed $25,000)
- Is the human coaching at $25K+ any good, or is it a glorified call center?
- How does the Flex fund construction compare to ETF-based portfolios from Betterment and Wealthfront?
- What does it feel like to use Fidelity Go inside the broader Fidelity ecosystem (which is, frankly, a sprawl)?
We’ll get into all of it. First, the fee math – because that’s where Fidelity Go either is or isn’t worth your time.
The $25,000 Fee Math: Where Fidelity Go Wins and Loses
Robo-advisor pricing is mostly noise. Fees of 0.25% vs 0.35% sound like rounding errors until you do the dollar math at the balance you have. So we did it.
Under $25,000: Fidelity Go Wins, Period
If your balance is under $25K, Fidelity Go costs zero dollars a year. Not “low fees.” Not “competitive.” Zero. The Flex funds have 0% expense ratios. There’s no advisory fee. There’s no rebalancing fee. There’s no nickel-and-diming on transfers.
At $10,000 invested, here’s what you’d pay each year:
- Fidelity Go: $0
- Betterment: $25 (0.25%) or $48 minimum if you don’t have direct deposit
- Wealthfront: $25 (0.25%)
- Schwab Intelligent Portfolios: $0 (but with a $5K minimum and cash drag)
For someone just starting to invest, Fidelity Go is the cleanest deal in robo-advising. You don’t even need direct deposit gymnastics to keep the fee waived. It’s just free. That’s it.
At $25,000: The Math Inverts
The moment your balance hits $25,000, Fidelity Go starts charging 0.35% a year on the entire balance. Not 0.35% on the amount above $25K – 0.35% on the whole pot.
That’s not us reading between the lines. Fidelity Go’s SEC Form ADV brochure (dated March 30, 2026) says it outright: the fee “would be applied to the entirety of your Program Account, not just the amounts of $25,000 and above.” Fidelity spells out the misreading in its own filing because so many people make it – including, we’d guess, some of the reviews you’ve read before this one.
At $25,000, that works out to $87.50 a year, or about $7.30 a month. Here’s the comparison:
- Fidelity Go: $87.50/year (0.35%)
- Betterment: $62.50/year (0.25%)
- Wealthfront: $62.50/year (0.25%)
- Schwab Intelligent Portfolios: $0 (free, with the cash-drag caveat)
Fidelity Go is now the most expensive name-brand robo at the $25K balance – $25 more per year than its closest competitors. That’s not a catastrophic spread (it’s a coffee or two), but it’s notable that the cheapest robo under $25K becomes the priciest robo at $25K.
What You Get for the 0.35% That Others Don’t Include
The $87.50 isn’t pure markup. At $25K, Fidelity Go opens up unlimited 30-minute phone calls with Fidelity advisors – real humans, real licensed planners. Betterment charges extra for that (their Premium tier is 0.65% with a $100K minimum). Wealthfront doesn’t do human coaching at all.
So if you’re going to use the coaching, the math gets reasonable. One useful 30-minute call with a CFP is worth $87.50 to a lot of people. If you’re not going to call anyone, you’re paying for an amenity you won’t touch, and Wealthfront is the better deal.
At $100K and Above
The spread grows. At $100,000:
- Fidelity Go: $350/year
- Betterment: $250/year
- Wealthfront: $250/year
$100 a year. At $500K, Fidelity Go costs $1,750 vs $1,250 for the competition – $500 a year for that coaching access. At this balance, you should probably be at a Fidelity Wealth Management account anyway (which kicks in at $250K and is a different product).
How Big Is Fidelity Go, Really? You Can’t Tell From the Filing
One thing that’s genuinely hard to find anywhere: how much money Fidelity Go itself manages. Fidelity Go doesn’t file its own SEC assets-under-management number. It shares a single Form ADV with six sibling programs – Fidelity Strategic Disciplines, Fidelity Personalized Planning & Advice at Work, Fidelity Wealth Services, Fidelity Managed FidFolios, and Fidelity Wealth Advisor Solutions – all filed under one umbrella, Strategic Advisers LLC.
That combined filing reports $1,370,125,325,211 in regulatory assets under management across 2,973,512 accounts, as of December 31, 2025 (Form ADV Item 5.F). Fidelity Go’s own Part 2A brochure repeats that exact $1.37 trillion figure under “Strategic Advisers total assets under management” – it’s explicitly firm-wide, not Fidelity Go’s number. No SEC filing anywhere isolates what Fidelity Go alone manages. So when you see Fidelity Go described as managing over a trillion dollars, that’s Strategic Advisers’ whole book across seven programs, not this product specifically.
What’s Inside the Portfolio: Fidelity Flex Funds
The defining feature of Fidelity Go isn’t the fee structure – it’s what the platform invests your money in. Every Fidelity Go portfolio is built from Fidelity Flex mutual funds, which are Fidelity’s proprietary zero-expense-ratio funds available only inside managed accounts like this one.
This is an unusual setup. Most robos (Betterment, Wealthfront, M1) use ETFs from third parties – Vanguard, iShares, Schwab. Those ETFs charge their own expense ratios (small, but they exist – usually 0.03% to 0.15%). Fidelity Go uses in-house mutual funds that charge nothing. The expense ratio line on your statement is 0.00%.
The catch: Flex funds aren’t available outside Fidelity Go. You can’t buy them in a brokerage account. You can’t transfer them in kind. If you ever leave Fidelity Go, your Flex fund holdings get liquidated or transferred into different funds – which can create taxable events in a taxable account.
Asset Classes
Your Fidelity Go portfolio covers four asset classes:
- U.S. stocks (large, mid, small cap)
- International stocks (developed and emerging)
- U.S. bonds
- Short-term reserves (a money-market sleeve)
What you don’t get: real estate (REITs), commodities, international bonds, TIPS, or alternative assets. Wealthfront and Betterment include some of these by default. Fidelity Go’s portfolios are deliberately simple – some would say plain. It’s a Toyota Camry of asset allocation: it’ll get you where you’re going, but nobody’s going to call it exotic.
The Risk Profiles
Fidelity Go offers seven model portfolios ranging from “Short-Term” (all cash and reserves) to “Aggressive Growth” (about 95% stocks). The questionnaire takes maybe four minutes and asks about your timeline, goal, income, and risk feelings. We answered as best we could and got placed in the moderate-aggressive Flex fund model.
One nice touch: you can override the recommendation. If the algorithm puts you at “Balanced” and you want “Aggressive,” you can change it without arguing with anyone. Most robos do this, but Fidelity Go’s interface for it is unusually clean.
Tax-Loss Harvesting: Now Included at $25K+
For a long time the loudest knock on Fidelity Go was that it didn’t do tax-loss harvesting at all. That changed. Once your balance hits $25,000 in a taxable Fidelity Go account, TLH is automatically included – Fidelity scans the Flex funds that hold stocks for harvesting opportunities throughout the year. Under $25K, there’s still no TLH (the account is free, so this is consistent with how most robos handle their free tiers).
This used to be the single biggest gap in the product, and it mattered most for exactly the people paying the 0.35% fee – taxable account holders with $25K+. Now that Fidelity has plugged the hole, the comparison against Betterment and Wealthfront is much closer. Their implementations are more aggressive (broader asset universes, more harvesting partners), but Fidelity Go is no longer a flat zero on this feature.
If your money is in an IRA or Roth IRA, TLH doesn’t matter – retirement accounts don’t generate taxable events. So none of this applies. If you’re investing taxable money at $25K+ and care about tax efficiency, you now get harvesting at Fidelity Go – just on a narrower fund set than Wealthfront or Betterment will work with.
The Flex funds themselves are also reasonably tax-efficient (low turnover, occasional municipal bond exposure for higher tax brackets), which compounds with the harvesting. The remaining caveat: harvesting only happens inside Flex funds that hold stocks, so the opportunity set is smaller than at a competitor that harvests across a wide ETF universe.
How Fidelity Go Has Performed
Most Fidelity Go reviews skip performance entirely, probably because Fidelity doesn’t make it easy to compare. The independent numbers come from The Robo Report, which has run real funded accounts at robo-advice providers since 2015 specifically to make this kind of comparison possible.
In its ~60/40 taxable-account comparison, Fidelity Go’s return came in above its Normalized Benchmark (a fee-comparable index blend matched to the account’s own allocation) across every trailing period ended March 31, 2026: +0.04% over 1 year, +0.24% over 3 years, +0.78% over 5 years, and +0.45% over 8 years, all annualized and net of fees. These are excess returns relative to benchmark, not raw portfolio returns.
The 5-year number stands out more than it looks. In the Robo Report’s Q4 2025 Robo Ranking, Fidelity Go’s 5-year benchmark-relative performance (+1.02% annualized, period ended December 31, 2025) was, in Condor Capital’s own words, “the strongest benchmark-adjusted performance in our tracked universe.” For a product whose whole reputation is “cheap and simple,” that’s a genuinely good result on the one metric that’s supposed to matter most.
What Our $25,000 Test Showed
Opening the Account
If you already have a Fidelity login, account opening takes about six minutes. We did – Chris has had a Fidelity brokerage account for years – so the platform pre-filled everything. The questionnaire, the goal-setting screen, the funding flow. ACH from an external bank took about two business days before the funds were available for investment.
If you don’t have a Fidelity login yet, expect more friction – identity verification, beneficiary setup, the standard FINRA disclosures. Budget 15-20 minutes for a first-time Fidelity customer. Still less painful than opening a Vanguard account, which is its own special purgatory.
The Dashboard
Fidelity Go doesn’t have its own dashboard. Your account just appears as one more line item inside the regular Fidelity.com portfolio view, alongside any brokerage accounts, IRAs, or 401(k)s you have at the firm. Click into the Go account and you get a tile-based view: balance, allocation pie chart, performance over time, and a “Plan” tab with goal progress.
It’s clean. It’s functional. It’s also clearly built by a company whose design language was set in 2014. Compared to the slick mobile-first experience at Betterment or Wealthfront, Fidelity Go feels like opening a filing cabinet (a well-organized one, but a filing cabinet). If you want delight, look elsewhere. If you want to find your balance in two clicks and move on with your day, it works.
The Coaching Call
The big question for the 0.35% fee was always going to be: is the human coaching any good?
We scheduled a call about a week after the account hit the $25K threshold. booked through the app, available within a week. The advisor was a Fidelity-employed CFP and Series 7/66 holder, based in one of Fidelity’s regional offices, and clearly knew the products inside out.
What the call wasn’t: deep, customized financial planning. They’re not going to build you a retirement projection model or do a Roth conversion analysis. The coaching is more like “you’re 42, here are some things to think about given your goal and your risk profile” – which is fine, and probably the right level for most Fidelity Go customers, but it isn’t going to replace a fee-only fiduciary.
What the call was: a real licensed person answering real questions about asset allocation, contribution strategy, and whether the Go portfolio made sense for our stated goal. Better than a chatbot. Worse than a dedicated planner. Roughly what you’d hope for at $87.50 a year, which is to say: reasonable.
Rebalancing and Auto-Invest
Fidelity Go rebalances automatically whenever an asset class drifts more than a set threshold (Fidelity doesn’t publish the exact number, but it’s in the ballpark of 5-10% relative drift). In our eleven months and counting of holding, the portfolio rebalanced three times without intervention.
You can set recurring deposits in any amount (the $10 minimum is just for the initial buy-in – subsequent deposits can be smaller). Auto-invest is automatic – new cash goes into the model portfolio at the next available trading window.
Withdrawing Money
We tested a partial withdrawal of $20,000 to see what the timeline looked like. Sell order placed on a Tuesday, settled on T+1, cash transferred to the linked external bank in one business day after settlement.
Total time from “I want my money” to “money in my bank”: about four business days. Standard for any robo-advisor. Nothing weird, no holds, no surprises.
Smart Shift: The Sleeper Feature
Fidelity introduced Smart Shift in May 2023 and very few reviews mention it. It works like a target-date fund glued onto Fidelity Go – you pick a target date (retirement, college, whatever), and the platform gradually de-risks your allocation as you approach it.
It’s not on by default. You have to enable it, and you have to be invested in the Fidelity-recommended allocation (not a manual override) for it to work. We turned it on with a 2050, and the platform projected the allocation glide path out to that date. It’s a small thing, but it’s the kind of feature you’d pay extra for at a competitor and Fidelity throws in for free.
Account Types
Fidelity Go covers the standard set:
- Individual taxable
- Joint taxable
- Traditional IRA
- Roth IRA
- Rollover IRA
- Health Savings Account (HSA)
What’s missing: custodial accounts (UGMA/UTMA), 529 college savings plans, solo 401(k)s, SEP/SIMPLE IRAs, and trust accounts. If you need any of those, Fidelity has them – just not inside Fidelity Go. You’d have to use a regular Fidelity managed product or self-directed account.
The HSA inclusion is unusual and welcome. Most robos don’t do HSAs at all. If you have a high-deductible health plan and want a managed HSA, Fidelity Go is one of the few places to get one.
Customer Support
Fidelity’s customer support is one of the better operations in finance. Phone support runs roughly 24/7 for general questions (Fidelity Go-specific support is weekdays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET). Live chat is available during business hours. Wait times in our experience were under five minutes.
You also get access to the broader Fidelity educational ecosystem – Learning Center articles, planning calculators, the Viewpoints newsletter. Most of it is well-written. Some of it tries to sell you on other Fidelity products, but the financial planning content itself is solid.
Who Fidelity Go Is For
Based on our $25K test and what we know about the platform, Fidelity Go is a good fit for:
- New investors with under $25K. The fee math is unbeatable. Zero dollars a year, zero expense ratios, low minimums. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better starter robo.
- Existing Fidelity customers. If you already have a 401(k), IRA, or brokerage account at Fidelity, having your robo allocation in the same dashboard is genuinely useful. One login, one tax document package, one customer service number.
- IRA holders at any balance. Tax-loss harvesting is irrelevant in retirement accounts, so the narrower TLH implementation doesn’t matter here. At $25K+ in an IRA, the human coaching is a nice extra.
- People who want a managed HSA. Not many platforms do this. Fidelity does, and the HSA inside Fidelity Go is straightforward.
- Hands-off investors who want a Toyota Camry. If you want a simple, four-asset-class portfolio that gets rebalanced for you and never asks for your attention, this is that.
Who Should Probably Look Elsewhere
- Taxable investors at $25K+ who want the most aggressive tax-loss harvesting. Fidelity Go now does TLH at $25K+, but only inside Flex funds that hold stocks. Wealthfront and Betterment harvest across a broader ETF universe with daily checks, which usually captures more losses at higher balances. The fee differential narrows the case, but it doesn’t close it.
- People who want exotic asset classes. No REITs, no commodities, no international bonds, no alternatives. If you want a more diversified portfolio, look at Betterment, Wealthfront, or M1.
- Self-directed traders. Fidelity Go doesn’t let you pick individual stocks or funds. If you want control, use Fidelity’s regular brokerage instead – it’s also excellent.
- High-net-worth investors. Above $250K, Fidelity Wealth Management is a different (and arguably better) product. Above $500K, the 0.35% on Fidelity Go starts looking expensive without proportional value.
- People who care about app design. The Fidelity mobile experience is fine, not great. If a beautiful interface matters to you, Wealthfront and Betterment are years ahead.
Fidelity Go vs. The Competition
Fidelity Go vs. Betterment
Betterment is cheaper at $25K+ (0.25% vs 0.35%) and harvests losses across a broader ETF universe than Fidelity Go does inside Flex funds. The interface is also more modern. Fidelity Go is free under $25K (Betterment isn’t – their no-direct-deposit fee structure adds friction), now offers TLH at $25K+, and the Fidelity ecosystem is unbeatable if you already have accounts there. For taxable investors with $25K+ who want the most aggressive harvesting, Betterment still wins. For everyone else, it’s closer than it used to be.
Fidelity Go vs. Wealthfront
Wealthfront is also 0.25% and runs a more aggressive TLH implementation – daily checks across a broad ETF universe, with direct indexing kicking in at higher balances. Fidelity Go now does TLH too (at $25K+, inside Flex funds), but the implementation is narrower. Fidelity Go has human coaching, which Wealthfront doesn’t do, and the Fidelity custody is a meaningful trust factor for some people. If you want the most tax-efficient, lowest-cost robo, Wealthfront. If you want the human touch, Fidelity Go.
Fidelity Go vs. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios
Schwab is free at any balance, but it holds a meaningful chunk of your money in cash (sometimes 6%-10%), which creates a drag. Fidelity Go invests virtually all of your money. At $25K+ in a taxable account, Schwab might win on cost; everywhere else, Fidelity Go is more efficient.
Verdict: A Great Free Robo, a Good (Not Great) Paid Robo
After running $25,000 of our own money through Fidelity Go, we keep coming back to the same conclusion: this is two different products inhabiting the same login.
Under $25K, Fidelity Go is the cleanest, cheapest robo-advisor on the market. Free advisory, free expense ratios, low minimums, the Fidelity ecosystem, simple portfolios. We have no real complaints. If you’re starting out and you don’t want to think about your money, open a Fidelity Go account – the platform pays for itself by not charging anything.
At $25K+, things get murkier. The 0.35% is reasonable if you’ll use the coaching. It’s not reasonable if you won’t. Tax-loss harvesting now kicks in at $25K+ in taxable accounts, which closes what used to be the platform’s biggest gap – though Wealthfront and Betterment still run more aggressive implementations. The portfolio construction is fine but unexciting. You’re paying more than you would at Wealthfront or Betterment for a comparable robo experience plus one nice extra (human calls).
Our recommendation, based on the test: Fidelity Go is a fantastic place to park your first $25K. After that, do the math on whether you’ll call the coaches and how much you value the broader TLH coverage at Wealthfront or Betterment versus Fidelity Go’s Flex-fund-only version. For a meaningful share of investors, the answer is “stay at Fidelity Go” – it’s good, just not best-in-class above the threshold. For others, especially taxable investors at $25K-$100K who want the most aggressive harvesting, Betterment or Wealthfront will probably do better.
We like Fidelity Go. We use Fidelity Go. We just wouldn’t pretend the fee structure makes equal sense at every balance – and the company shouldn’t either.
This review is based on a real account funded with $20,000 of our own money that grew past the $25,000 fee tier during the test window. We don’t get paid by Fidelity. We may earn affiliate commission if you open an account through links on this site – that doesn’t change our take.
